


The Flip Side Of Chaos

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Die Hard (Movies), Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt has had a hell of a couple of days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flip Side Of Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://writerverse.livejournal.com/profile)[writerverse](http://writerverse.livejournal.com/) prompt of "random."

x-x-x-x-x

He'd taken a spec-job as a white-hat hacker—it was an opportunity and a challenge. The payoff was winner-takes-all, but Matt was actually that good, so why not? He'd been on the verge of breaking through the last step and claiming victory when he'd had to stop because someone was pounding on the door.

That someone was a beefy cop who'd come looking for Matt for no particularly good reason. That was just about the point when the world exploded, an event Matt honestly had not seen coming at all.

It turned out the cop was one of the good guys—as unbelievable as it was to have both of those ideas exist in the same context. Warlock would have said Matt was the victim of some kind of secret brain implant, except that Warlock had wound up _helping_ them, so that had to prove something.

Maybe it proved Matt had finally had one too many caffeine-fueled all-night coding extravaganzas, and he was actually passed-out on the living room floor,

It didn't feel like that, though. What it felt like was a bullet hole in the knee—a knee that was now the size of a cantaloupe—and the aftermath of a couple of days of being chased and shot at while driving across multiple states in an impossibly convoluted attempt to save the world.

An attempt that had actually _worked_.

So, in the current version of what seemed to be Matt's new reality, he was lying in a hospital bed waiting for the pain meds to kick in and wondering where the hell he was going to go when the hospital discharged him. His apartment was probably nothing but cinders, and moving back into his parents' place had homicidal implications written all over it. There were aspects of being a hero that definitely sucked.

Matt flipped through TV channels on the remote, bored and restless and thinking that some good news would be nice for a change. He heard a scuffling sound.

"Hey, kid." John McClane came around the corner, his shoulder bandaged and a nurse at his heels who was scolding him to get back in bed.

"Hey," Matt grinned. Of _course_ McClane would be up and running around like he'd barely gotten scratched. The guy probably ate bullets for breakfast.

"I was thinking that you're probably going to need a place to stay when you get out of here. I've got a spare room in my apartment that's there for the taking, if you want."

"That… that'd be _great_ ," Matt said. He didn't know whether it was the offer or the morphine, but suddenly his worries just seemed to melt away.

"Terrific," McClane said. "Here's the address. I'm heading there now, but I'll come back and visit if they don't let you out by tomorrow."

"Sure thing," Matt said. "Thanks."

McClane nodded. "Don't mention it."

Matt watched him go, as the nurse followed behind and tried to persuade McClane to at least stay at the hospital overnight.

The apartment was gone—and everything in it—and life was kind of a mess right now. Still, in spite of everything, Matt felt pretty good.

He'd helped John McClane save the world today. After that, everything else seemed easy.

 

\--/--


End file.
